How to keep a person or team on track and work well with diverse personalities. By definition, a facilitator is a person who makes things easy. But if you sometimes find the role to be tough—mainly because you're a manager, not a professional facilitator—this targeted book provides all the help you need. It teaches you the skills needed to keep a person, group, or team on track, and it shows you how to work well with diverse personalities. Designed for general managers whose time is at a premium, the book presents a six-step process and tools that you can apply in any situation—whether you're facilitating a short-term problem-solving session or a multi-year strategic planning project. You will learn how to:

Build commitment and foster a "we" approach

Develop effective, time-saving agendas

Deal with equipment and logistics, such as room setup and flip chart techniques

Utilize different types of questioning techniques

Become an active listener

Give better feedback

Use tools such as brainstorming and storyboarding

Avoid groupthink. This is an ebook version of the AMA Self-Study course. If you want to take the course for credit you need to either purchase a hard copy of the course through amaselfstudy.org or purchase an online version of the course through flexstudy.com.